Politics is local

I've opined digitally and privately since (at least) 2004 that America was nowhere near ready to elect a Black person president.

I have demurred that my vote would most certainly count much less than those lucky Democrats who voted on Super-Duper Tuesday this past February.

I have often said that society and corporate media over-emphasize presidential (and electoral) politics to the detriment of local races and other forms of meaningful civic engagement.

In less than two hours in my adoptive Philadelphia, I may be proven wrong on all counts.

I think if Obama wins the Pennsylvania Primary tonight, we may be that much closer to inaugurating an African American president on January 20, 2009. While I do not believe that Billary will concede tonight -- or perhaps at any point before the Democratic National Convention in August -- I believe all, but the most loyal Clintonistas will jump ship within days or weeks (if not seconds or minutes) from an Obama victory tonight.

I did not believe early on that Pennsylvania would be in play this far along in the race for the Democratic nomination. But it has. And it was only within the past two months that I realized my state of Pennsylvania might decide if the Democrats nationwide would usher in the first Black person or the first White woman Democratic "presumptive" nominee.

If Obama wins this primary, it will be in no small part due to the new and previously disaffected and marginalized voters who for election after election the national Democratic Party and Philadelphia's Democratic machine has systematically ignored. These marginalized folks are Philadelphia's poor Black and Latino voters who live in forgotten communities of poverty and hopelessness.

But there has been a glimmer of hope that has sparked an amazing energy among young and Black people, in particular, that I have not seen in the 20 years I have been voting in presidential elections. An energy that will surely die if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination.

I live in a predominantly Black precinct in a multi-racial neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia.

I have worked the polls in my community for the past two years, and have colleagues who have been doing so since the New Deal who haven't seen such civic fervor, attributable to the candidacy and unique campaign of Barack Obama.

In a local state representative race I have been working on since this summer, the Democratic electorate has grown by one fifth since the last presidential primary in 2004.

I see a diversity of people buying, wearing (making and selling) iconic Obama t-shirts whose metaphorical value far exceed their street value.

I voted for Barack Obama this afternoon and felt a unique tingly feeling I will not soon forget. It was a uniquely powerful and symbolically rich moment for me as a Black voter born two years after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King and exactly five years after the assassination of Malcolm X.

I voted for a Black man who has lived to be older than these two great Black men and who may do what they could not likely have even fathomed: that a Black person could be nominated by either party as their candidate for president.

I do believe that structural inequality and institutional racism exist in this country despite this auspicious political feat. However, I also believe that the means by which Obama has catalyzed and organized his supporters, more people may participate in electing him president in November (if he wins the Democratic nomination) than any other president in U.S. history. And like the Civil War that definitively reunited a fractured nation, the people who will be responsible for electing the first Black president will not be the same old, predominantly White electorate. Rather, it might be a very different looking demographic mix of voters that may influence 21st Century civic engagement as it relates to not just presidential politics, but local races like the one I've been working on all these months and non-electoral activism so crucial to strengthen our still fragile democracy.

Comments

[sally Hemings]

I too worked the polls on the Main Line. Not many minorities. I was thrilled at the parade of new and returning voters. Families showed up for this historic Primary.

Wearing a Obama cap, several people whispered support. My republican counterparts were annoyed at the citizens who switched parties to vote in this closed primary.

I am not as optimistic as you are about the final outcome. HOWEVER, what Obama has done, at this moment in time, is Revolutionary. He has changed the political landscape and emerged as a leader of our generation.

[rawdawgbuffalo]

truth b told, i would over emphasize it too if it made me loot like that

[Station Agent]

I'm a white voter in very white Florida, and I can say that just about everyone I know is all in for Obama and damn proud of it.

This movement changed Pennsylvania over the last six weeks. Just not enough. But he will win in November. We just have to be patient and stick together.

[Jodie]

it's not over yet it appears... but may it be so. thank you for your commitment and your action... and may November signify the dawn of our new deal.

[Angry African]

The hope Obama brings should never be underplayed. It is a hope that is about race, America, the World, the future, and about him and me. It is a burden he has to carry. And it is a burden that he should never forget. Because it is a burden that people don't want to carry for much longer. He should never forget what this is about. He brings hope. But he also carries the hope of people who have all but given up on politics. More on this in my blog at http://angryafrican.net/2008/03/03/obama-dont-ever-forget-the-burden-of-hope/